Benefits were not raised at the time so effectively claimants suffered a cut in their income.

The freeze on welfare payments means they lose out more and more.

What has Labour said on these issues?

Nobody has yet to talk seriously of of getting rid of this scheme, designed to grind the faces of the poor.

In Labour’s Manifesto we had a commitment to “ a redesign and reform of Universal Credit (UC)” . This apparently applied mostly to the technology involved, as the source (Government Computing) indicates.

What are the details?

And, of far greater importance, what of the issues listed above which have led to poverty level incomes for people on benefits, sanctions, and all the rest….

All we have so far in the public domain (and I am informed there is not much elsewhere, unless there are some hidden Labour Policy Commission types busy burrowing away on the Work, Pensions and Equality Commission whose work has yet to see the light of day..) are broad brush ideas on “Tackling poverty and inequality” and “making work pay” .

“The benefit cap is something that Labour would look to ending, Debbie Abrahams has said.

The idea, which has not yet been costed, would stop the household cap of £20,000 per household outside of London. The cap in London is £23,000. Parents must work for at least 16 hours a week to avoid the cap.

Getting rid of the benefit cap was not in Labour’s general election manifesto.

The shadow work and pensions secretary brought up the impact on child poverty that the cap has. Last week a judicial review brought by four families said that the cap brought “real misery” for families with young children, in comments reported by the BBC.

Debbie Abrahams, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, commenting on the ministerial statement on the roll-out of Universal Credit, said:

“Yet again the Tory Government has been forced to extend the Universal Credit rollout. This is the seventh time that the timetable has been altered since March 2013 and the implementation of Universal Credit is beset by problems. For example, UNISON has made me aware of a worker who has fallen foul of the strict DWP monthly assessment period, meaning she’s losing nearly £700 a year in Universal Credit on a £11,600 salary, purely because her monthly pay date varies. This simply isn’t acceptable.

“The Government claims to want to support working people but. The new Secretary of State should get a grip of roll-out, look at the myriad problems in implementation and immediately u-turn on the Tories’ cuts to the work allowance.“

Between 2016 and 2017 it’s become clearer that we need a root-and-branch approach to replace Universal Credit in its present form.

As the story we began with continues:

Universal credit combines benefits such as jobseeker’s allowance and employment and support allowance, as well as housing benefit and tax credits, into a single monthly payment.

A report by charity Citizens Advice last week called for the universal credit rollout to be paused, citing “significant problems” with the system.

Research by the charity suggested many claimants fell into debt waiting for their first payment, which takes six weeks to process, while Citizens Advice also raised concerns over universal credit’s administration.

The charity believes that by 2022 more than seven million households will receive universal credit, 54% of which will have someone in work.

We look forward to seeing some detail relevant to these points in this, though not being a wealthy toff who reads far-right papers like the Times I do not have access to the article.

The “toxic” government contractor Atos has been accused of trying to create a smokescreen to hide its past failures and “appalling reputation”, after quietly announcing that it is changing the name of its disability benefit assessment arm.

The company – blamed by many disabled people for repeated, serious and harmful failings in the way it has carried out assessments – has told “stakeholders” that its Atos Healthcare brand has now been renamed Independent Assessment Services.

The Tories are scrapping the benefits system completely. People on ESA going onto UC are now thrown back on to ESA which will close down in a year. Tax credit on UC will be scrapped. Housing benefit will be scrapped. The Tories don`t care your out the system you should get a job with no pay & think yourself lucky.

The Tories now realise UC won`t work & is costing £Billions which now is going to the DUP.

So lets hide & push UC under the carpet & hope everyone dies off to keep the Tories in power.

Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe.

How are you implementing the recent Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) decision on the right to be forgotten?

The recent ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union has profound consequences for search engines in Europe. The court found that certain users have the right to ask search engines like Google to remove results for queries that include the person’s name. To qualify, the results shown would need to be inadequate, irrelevant, no longer relevant, or excessive.

Since this ruling was published on 13 May 2014, we’ve been working around the clock to comply. This is a complicated process because we need to assess each individual request and balance the rights of the individual to control his or her personal data with the public’s right to know and distribute information.

What about a non-means-tested Universal Guaranteed Income. funded in part by a system of negative income tax? If you earn less than a certain amount your receive a top-up to make sure you can pay your rent and afford to live decently, which drops as you earn more and more until you become a net contributor and pay taxes into to the system. Everybody, even the wealthy, would be eligible for this if they fell on hard times and those who could afford to would pay in and those who couldn’t take out.

‘Work till you drop’ is already becoming a reality for many older people,

Government estimates show that many older people are simply not claiming the benefits they’re entitled to, losing out on an estimated £3.5 billion in unclaimed Pension Credit and Housing Benefit alone.

You love it don’t you Gov.

“We would urge anyone who is worried about their finances, or an older family member or friend, to get in touch with us for free, impartial information and advice.”

You can only claim for JSA & ESA & UC under the new rules. If you have not paid any national insurance you will not be able to claim for ANY benefits under the new rules. Which makes disabled people dead as far as the Tories are not concerned. Work Pays = £10 Billion to the DUP who are really para militaries in suits.

Yet more death through the new DWP policy of scrapping the benefits system to pay off the DUP.

Like your going to be able to make employers stop doing this, make me laugh.
There is even companies that do it for them and you don’t need to ask for passwords to make it happen. For many facebooker/twitterers its that Andy Warhol moment so some if not all aspects of their account will be open to public scrutiny. Even if they don’t bots harvest data and archive it. Only false details, catchy nicknames and no photos will hide you.

On top of this “WHAT IF YOU DON’T HAVE AN ONLINE PRESENCE”, how is that viewed by employers as they have for decades always seen a persons name not on the electoral register as a negative so why not a lack of online presence. Lastly lets not forget DWP themselves for quite some time now have ADVOCATED HAVING AN ONLINE PRESENCE OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW be it that they never actually say the last part but insinuate it none the less. Ive even heard cases from claimants being told its part of a requirement to be eligible for benefits like making your CV public for instance via UJM as one example.

IF YOU DON’T KNOW.

DWP CANNOT make any claimant use or put personal and or sensitive data online, even in the event of opening a UJM account.

Personal/sensitive data by definition of the law is any two pieces or more of data that clearly identifies you as you and no one else.

Examples

Name and address
Phone number and UJM
use of computer register and internet browsing data
CV and UJM account.

I was under the impression you could be fined for NOT being on the Electoral Register. This is because they use this to form Jury Panels. It used too be you had to register in the electors list but you dont have to vote

It is technically an offence to not return the ‘enquiry form’. If you ignore it, the reminders and any home visits the entry for the property on the electoral register will remain as is currently. In Australia you are fined for not voting. The ‘electoral register’ is a cover for all manner of nefarious activity and used by all sorts of nasties such as credit reference agencies and the police.

No one really enforces that rule not to mention it does conflict with the HRA as in a right to a private life when you consider its hardly done to commit some nefarious fraud by not doing so. The ER has over the decades been a double edge sword as in some ways it benefits you (loans) while in others it doesn’t (advertisers).
A lot of people tend to not bother these days and in earnest its a poor way about going about it as technically if your homeless it means you cant vote not to mention is always reliant on a single person to actually put all the household on it which they don’t for various reasons.

Your quite right, the register doesn’t get changed and why you end up with a firm like Concentrix falsely accusing a young woman of being in a sexual type relationship with a very old man (previous occupant) and stopping her tax credits.

The electoral register was intended for the purpose of voting but has been systematically used by business and councils to infer all sorts of things, most of which are very unhelpful. The register should have never been open to scrutiny and should have how ever ineffective been solely for voting purposes.

NI is the sole best way to identify a legit voter yet rather than abandon the register and have it attached to a voting form, governments and councils have instead sort to keep both as a way of monitoring the public’s base footprint while getting updated personal details. They could get off there fat backsides and work with HMRC,DWP and banks for such details but this time clearly barring businesses outside of at the very least banking from any access whats so ever. We could then ditch the electoral register and allow NI numbers solely on voting forms to verify who is actually eligible to vote.

Since the Tories came to power what was once a “safety net” for those that had fell on hard times (such as losing a job, being unable to find one or being incapable of doing one through ill health etc.) has become a monitoring, tracking, and control tool of “plebs”. What exactly about the masses is so dangerous that the state needs to wield this big stick? It is because the powers that be have something to hide, and are terrified that the great unwashed will actually see what these self styled elite beings are doing to their less fortunate counterparts, inequality needs scapegoats to assuage their guilt like the so called charity of Children in Need et al where these poverty stricken peoples heart strings are pulled at the plight of unfortunates who should be dealt with through our collective taxes, but that money is being loaned interest free to the banks who caused the very mess we are in in the first place!

My Work Coach admitted to me today that he was on Universal Credit, being a poorly paid family man with three children. Incredible isn’t it? At least he probably won’t be daft enough to claim the “work is the best way out of poverty”.

This situation cannot continue for a country that is supposed to be going it alone with such a weak economy attempting to live behind some form of modern day iron curtain without mainland Europe’s freedoms of trade and movement.

Work means work without the need for state support and independence from the safety net thus contributing for in a time of need.Universal Credit is a bizarre conundrum of expensive errors,unworkable ideas,unpractical principles of a modern day society only a true living wage is the way forward.The problem goes back to tax credits and the £4.50 an hour employer culture while theres state support in work this will only encourage this trend to continue.

It couldn’t happen anywhere else.Only the Tories could create this mess and keep adding to it.

£10 Billion for the DUP yet there is no money to change the dangerous & illegal cladding on thousands of schools & hospitals. Asbestos & illegal cladding which produces cyanide poisoning is a death trap waiting to happen. It takes 6 more Tories & DUP to make a sackable tweet for the Tories to lose their majority. Result General Election.

Even Theresa May can drive a train of bribery for the DUP. So even disabled people can drive a train for a sexist Phillip Hammond. Tory Disability Hate Crime with DWP Assisted Suicide as DWP Policy. Work Pays [The DUP – Tories getting a 15% pay rise & what important job do they do in their Denial Factory Dictatorship !!!

PFI Tower Block Cladding run by the HM Treasury to get the cheaper illegal toxic cladding either on Grenfell Tower or Chalcots Estate in Swiss Cottage. Scared to tell us that over 400 people died in Genfell Tower.

More people have died in the UK from Tory policy from Welfare Reform to 1% pay caps over the past year than have died in war zones like Syria & Iraq combined.

High Treason is a charge against the Empire because Theresa May you are not the Queen of Maggy Thatcher. Blame Dodgy Dave & Rupert Murdoch Theresa May.

As a disabled person the cull of the disabled is a shameful fact in British History that can not be controlled by a lazy dictatorship use European Laws to save their arses against the UN Breaches of the disabled. So new UK Human Rights Laws that will kill off all disabled people in the UK. Once that is done the low paid workers will be killed off. The Welfare State & the NHS have already been killed off making £100s of Billions for the politicians first job which is Corporate Business. Politics is their part time job helping Rupert Murdoch with propaganda & brainwashing using the disabled as scrounging scapegoats.

Funny, i don’t see any evidence of benefit fraud and quite frankly not much in the way of errors being on the part of the public either. Why make a bold and broad comment like benefit fraud rather than just tax credit fraud, why promote errors as one way traffic.

Clearly the mail is up to no good but is this just them or are they fronting a planned initiative by our government who would stand to benefit greatly from stirring up hate towards tax credits much like they did welfare benefits back in the early 2010s not to mention possible abolition or a restructuring.

What we know so far is an awful lot of people even under the new system of UC are heavily reliant on tax credits. This would signal quite an embarrassing situation for government that instead of the claim a person is always better off in work that they merely created a grey divide between being unemployed and employed with many not really being that far estranged from being unemployed in financial terms. With the fall of the value of the pound, inflation/rising costs, increased ZHC and self employment, many are no doubt falling back towards being more state funded now the minimum wage increase has been officially kicked into the dirt in terms of any gain.

The C&AG has qualified his regularity audit opinion on the 2015-16 Resource Accounts because of material levels of fraud and error in the payments of Personal Tax Credits. He has qualified the accounts on these grounds every year since tax credits were introduced in 2003-04. HMRC’s central estimate of error and fraud in 2014-15 (the most recent available) is £1.37 billion overpayments (4.8% of total spending on Personal Tax Credits) and £0.19 million underpayments (0.7% of total spending on Personal Tax Credits).

HMRC has maintained the levels of error and fraud within Personal Tax Credits by designing and implementing interventions that enable it to identify and target high-risk cases. HMRC analysis shows that during 2014-15 it continued to reduce losses caused by children being incorrectly included in claims and by undeclared partners. However, their most recent analysis suggests it has not continued to reduce losses in other categories, particularly relating to earnings. HMRC should continue to use its analysis of losses within risk categories to inform where best to focus intervention activity.

HMRC estimates that overpayment of Child Benefit due to error and fraud was £170 million in 2015-16, equivalent to 1.4% of total spending on Child Benefit. The vast majority of this relates to customers not replying to requests for information during testing and who HMRC assumes to be non-compliant. HMRC should develop a more rigorous approach to its testing and evaluation of error and fraud in Child Benefit to identify the true level of losses, the root causes of these and to identify the appropriate actions to reduce error and fraud.

SO THIS SUGGESTS regardless of whether its fraud or error that the sector it falls into is working tax credit more so than child tax credit. Child tax credit fraud according to the release stands at only 10.625% of the reported £1.6 billion fraud and error.

Its pretty obvious considering the sums involved in personal tax credits overall that this is an area government can exploit to get money for other things without attacking pensioners so i have to wonder if the papers weren’t steered to look here and moan so as to build up the same hatred you saw when government became divisive around pocketing welfare benefits and gathering support for what transpired as very nasty actions.
We know this government definitely don’t want to raise the tax amount despite many of the public stating they would be quite happy to give an extra penny on the pound keeping the likes of the NHS going. THIS IS VERY TELLING.

Government is looking to squeeze the poorly paid, often insecure employed again. This is definitely one to watch in time.

Even without inflation people were still destined to struggle because it was never going to go lower and all brexit did was speed up the process of realization. The public have always paid the brunt of taxes and business in this country when the buck should always stay firmly with business, the revolving door to the entire economical process.

When you look at most problems, its always a matter of money, inequality,poverty, crime,starvation, even hope and the future. Solely behind these matters lies business and lacks of governance all bent on promoting indifference hidden under the banner of freedom and liberty. They prey on and covet indifference for without it they have no place, no existence.

The Brits are going to get the worst of both worlds with Brexit – soaring inflation and high i*mmigration. A right double whammy! Thank goodness we got to hell out of Old Blighty 🙂 To those who remain – geddit – May the Lord have Mercy on Your Souls… and the ever-depreciating Great British Pound in Your Pocket. Here’s to a piña colada 🙂

Government knew for time there would be a rise and why they introduced procedures for DWP staff not to treat people with mental health issues as vulnerable, to lower ESA and so forth. Just like they say welfare reform isn’t behind certain claimants taken their own lives, they will do it here so ready yourself for more of reasons for mental health issues are complex and to attribute them to welfare reforms is misleading.

Its all cause and effect just like gaia described many many moons ago. That problems don’t just go away with a change of tact but merely transpose/redirect themselves elsewhere.

Government may have hedged their bets on welfare but just think of the massively increased cost its has placed on the taxpayer regarding costs towards the NHS on medicine and treatment. Its not hard to see the Tories knew not only would they save but also ensure the pressure and cost it would place on the NHS, an institute they so badly want to privatize.

Thats a good find Superted.However its unlikely to get people into work any quicker.You cannot blame someone for having a disability or take it on them because they have.Unfortunatly people are people and there will always be those that negatively judge the less able and equally jump to wrong conclusions.

The more the Tories sink the more they take it out on those on benifits.

Its hard not to see this ending up in the court’s.More threats.We were told as you move from welfare to work back in 2011,that didn’t happen,now their resorting to this.On a wider scale it highlights the type of government we have here.

A4e washed their hands of disabled people passing them off to (what were better in many cases) third party providers but the barriers faced not least for a poor job market were to great.

You cannot blame or take it out on disabled people,those with invisible disabilities are at some of the worst disadvantage such as specific and global learning difficulties for example.If someone is fortunate to find work and simply keeping quite they won’t have protection under the Equality act or workplace support and will end back up on benefits when problems inevitably surface.Because they don’t know whats wrong they automatically think someone strange and hence they lose their job.Then the DWP start moaning.